đť 00:33 HRS â OLD KARWAN BAZAAR
Moonlight barely touched the ruins.
Karwan Bazaar, once a center of trade and sweat and shouting, was now rubble soaked in floodwater and memory. The perfect graveyard for a secret.
And for an ambush.
The Fire Wives moved fast.
Three black trucks, silent wheels, masked soldiers with pulse rifles. They cut through the alleyways like a ghost unit â no sound, no sign.
Then they stopped.
> Crates.
Exactly where Shohan said.
Ten of them. Dusty. Marked in faded paint: Al-Madina Cement Co.
Maya's second-in-command, Pori Apa, stepped forward and ran a scan.
> "Plasmite. Enough to blow half the Maw's network offline."
> "It's real," another soldier whispered. "It's actually real."
> "He was telling the truth."
> "He always does," Pori said grimly. "That's the scary part."
---
đł BACK AT THE HOLE
Shohan didn't celebrate.
He sat quietly while Ansha patched the cracked firewall on her old laptop. Rafi was asleep again â curled up with a bag of biscuits and a rusted fan buzzing above him.
Ansha looked over her shoulder.
> "You pulled it off."
> "Yeah."
> "You're in now. A full Frame."
Shohan didn't respond.
She turned to him. "This isn't just about saving the boy anymore, is it?"
He finally looked up. Eyes hollow. Calculating.
> "This isn't about the boy.
It never was."
---
đ§ THE REAL PLAN
He tapped open a data map he'd been building in secret:
A virtual blueprint of all Frame movement, leaks, asset locations, and unregistered kills.
He wasn't just leaking lies or playing defense.
He was creating a predictive system â a living simulation of NeoDhaka's underworld.
And once it was finished, he wouldn't just survive the Frame WarsâŚ
He'd control them.
---
đ´ CUT TO: THE SILVER MAW
Somewhere in a glass tower, Jashim of Silver Maw reviews surveillance footage.
They caught glimpses of the Fire Wives raid.
The crates. The theft.
And one shot, one tiny freeze-frame, shows a boy on a rooftop in the distance. Hoodie. Plastic cup in hand. Smiling faintly.
Jashim zooms.
Enhances.
> "Shohan."
He whispers the name like a curse.
> "He's playing us."
---
đŞ BACK IN THE CITY â SHOHAN ALONE
The neon streets reflect in his eyes.
He watches the rain drip off an old statue of a lion, buried under years of grime. Everything in this city used to mean something.
Now?
Only survival mattered.
> "This is your war now, Shohan," he whispered to himself.
"No one's coming to save you."
He turned and walked into the shadows.
But he didn't walk alone.
He walked ten moves ahead.
---